In my garden (Adelaide Hills), Marie Nabonnand is a medium climber re height; it spreads further than it climbs. It has a lot going for it - flowers well through winter, has few prickles, and is fragrant. It's red, not deep pink as in the description. Then there's good old Black Boy (1918), and more shapely flowers in Climbing Crimson Glory, 1940s, which I haven't grown. I don't think either are more than medium climbers.

Thank you Margaret, I already have Black Boy and Crimson Glory. I need something as dark and rich as Black Boy if possible. Your insight that Marie Nabonand grows horizontally rather than vertically is useful. I am growing them on the paddock fence up the driveway to the house, so that would be most convenient. How red is Marie Nabonand, I thought it had more pink in the shading?

Hello Patricia how are you both and how is your beautiful garden? Do you still have Patricia's Secret growing? I need the deep red rose for my fenceline..... I only have 2 left to fill, out of 32. I need Alberic Barbier, which is surprisingly hard to obtain in WA and the deep red rose. I'll try to find MacArthur and Marie Nabonand and see if either of them are dark enough. I already have Crimson Glory and Black Boy as suggested by Margaret Furness. I would like something as dark and rich as Black Boy if possible. Thanks for your help.... talk again soon.

Hi Isobel - My thoughts immediately went to the same roses Patricia suggested.'Marie Nabonnand' is a wonderful rose - the foliage is very healthy and attractive and, once established, it repeats well, flowering through winter in Perth and the fragrance is gorgeous. It's very biddable in its habit - I've seen it used as a wall or screen, on fences and walls, up trees and up and over various structures. My plant is approx 4 metres. Prickles are rare so it's a good rose to grow near paths and gateways etc.You might be able to find it in nurseries under the name "Beales' Monsieur Tillier", otherwise it may have to be a special request.

I also love Climbing General MacArthur. It is vigorous (though I suspect 6m would be quite a stretch) and has exquisitely fragrant and opulent blooms that are often a deep, rich pink colour rather than true redThe Perth region of Heritage Roses in Australia is planning to plant both 'Marie Nabonnand' and 'Climbing General MacArthur' on one of the pergolas at Falls Farm in Lesmurdie.

Racking brain trying to think of a healthy and fragrant repeat flowering red climber that would reach 6 metres and nothing is leaping to mind. The fragrant deep red rose I received as 'Climbing Crimson Glory' (a question mark over whether it is the real thing) is lovely but modest in size, and our 'Blackboy' has lovely blooms with a nice fragrance but the foliage often looks pretty ordinary and I wouldn't be inclined to make it a feature plant. (I'd be interested whether others find this as well). If you are looking for a rose to plant against a wall, there are some wonderful healthy and floriferous shrub roses that exult in Perth conditions and will reach impressive heights if given something to lean against. Mutabilis is one of these.Perth Region of Heritage Roses in Australia are having a Christmas get-together at Falls Farm this Saturday afternoon/ evening and you'd be very welcome to come along if you are free - an opportunity to ask others with first hand experience in local conditions. If you need any help finding any of these plants we can help with propagating material.

The photo of Cl Étoile de Hollande looks the right colour. The strong fragrance is also very appealing. How does the colour compare to Black Boy. I would really rather have an Heritage rose but I'm guessing since none of you have suggested an older rose that there are very few or none in this colour?

A few older ones. Bardou Job 1882 is a parent of Black Boy, but it's only a small climber. Cl Cramoisi Superieur 1885 is a China, not much scent. Noella Nabonnand 1901 is scented.Marie Nabonnand is red but not the dark colour of Black Boy.

Maybe some of David Austin's modern English roses could be another option. They repeat, have good red colours and scent, a more traditional shape than floribundas and hybrid-teas, some quartered and with a button eye. But I don't know how they would grow in your climate. You seem to want your cake and eat it..... :-)

Many of David Austin's roses can grow very big in hot climates. "Good scent" depends on how you feel about myrrh, for many of them. I like Jude the Obscure.The definition of heritage roses varies depending on who you talk to, but taking it as "introduced 75 years or more ago" lets us include the later Teas and Alister Clark roses. I would add the roses that the Chinese (for example) have been growing for a long time, but are recent introductions to Europe etc.

I guess I mean older roses (maybe pre 1900??) and perhaps Teas.I've looked up all of your suggestions and of them Etoile de Hollande is dark enough for what I want. Noella Nabonand and Marie Nabonand and M Tillier are all a bit too pink in the photo. I'm not sure how close it is to the real thing! Photos are always a bit out depending on the light and the season too probably. I like Alister Clarke. I have a few of his on the line. i'll try and take a good pic, so you can see what I'm trying to achieve.

Do you have General Gallieni? Not a climber but a splendid Red Tea.If good, bushy shrub roses will do the job, either alone or in groups, General Gallieni and Cramoisi Superieur will give you a good deep red colour on a very healthy and ever-blooming plant.Alister Clark's 'Restless' and "Camnethan Cherry-Red" are also worth consideration.

I have Restless further up the fence. That's the trouble really, I already have a good number in and it has reduced my options for the gaps. A China(?) would fit the bill Margaret. Can you think of a largish dark red one?Thank you all for you advice and expertise. I'm writing down the candidates and will follow up with more research to try and determine if the colour will fit in between Chateau d'clos Voggeott and Black Boy.

Have a look at Ten Thousand Lights - the biggest China we have. Starts pink, ages red, like many other Chinas. Not a climber but will reach 3m, and you could prune it flatter than its usual solid bush.There is Cl Cramoisi Superieur, if you can get hold of it. But consider this: three of us have recommended Marie Nabonnand. I guess you need to see it in the flesh.

Hello BillyThanks for the invitation and for the offer of propagating material. I've noticed that some of the roses I'm growing seem to have pinker tones or flush pink in the cold. I put in Gypsy Boy thinking it was a red colour but it blooms more a bright pink/mauve here. We are having a very strangely cool spring. I wonder if that is the cause?

Naturally, I would recommend (as I always do) Cl. Étoile de Hollande. But there is some discussion, whether the real-one is available in Australia.Not that large, but deep dark red, very fragrant and available in Australia: 'Souvenir du Docteur Jamain'Maybe plant two, instead of a larger-one?Of course, I do not know, if it thrives in Your climate and soil.

Isobel - Yes I still have what you call Patricia"s Secret. I call it 'Wisteria Stump Seedling'. At certain times of the year, the wisteria wins, at others, the rose leaps out of the top. I have 'Alberic Barbier' and it grows well from cutting. You only have to ask. If the criteria is a dark/deep red climber, 'Etoile de Hollande' seems a good suggestion. Andrew Ross (Ross Roses in S.A.) is quite sure he has Etoile de Hollande' and the photo he sent me looks very similar to those from Jay-Jay. I suspect my presumed 'Etoile de Hollande' came to me misnamed from another source. Find another place on your property for 'Marie Nabonnand'. You might find the 2009 reference for it of some interest.

I'd love a bit of Patricia's Secret/Wisteria Stump Seedling. Also a cutting of Alberic Barbier please. Also did you ever discover the real name of your found rose no.25?

Bother, I mean Alfred Carrriere NOT Alberic Barbier. I always mix the names of these two. I want the yellow buds and cream flowers. I had Alberic Barbier there but it has a pink flush in the base of the petals so I've moved it.

This is what Thomas for Roses have as Cl Etoile de Hollande, but they don't send to WA. Today at least the flowers aren't dark red. It has red new shoots, as Teas do, which attract parrots (be warned).

Just tell me what season you want the cuttings and I can post them. Rose No. 25? Sorry that is an early number, way back before I computerised my garden records.Now, I am not sure what you want. (You do know that you can search HelpMeFind for information on any rose in SEARCH/LOOKUP) 'Mme. Alfred Carriere' has a pink flush. 'Alberic Barbier' has yellow buds.

Rosella parrots know that red new shoots on roses indicate sugar-filled sap running in them...delicious! Which is pretty clever, considering that roses aren't native to the Southern hemisphere. Cockatoos know how to tackle walnuts, too; standing on one foot and holding the walnut in the other. But none of them know that stone fruit and apples should be left to ripen.The rose damage is mainly an irritant for the home gardener, but for display gardens it's more of a problem.

Ramblers mostly don't sucker (multiflora understock certainly can), but in general they will layer themselves if allowed to trail on the ground. That's partly why Dorothy Perkins, American Pillar, Hiawatha, Excelsa etc thrive on road verges in the Adelaide Hills.

Thankyou. That's useful information. I have Excelsa grown in a pot as a cutting.... I don't actually like it much so I must dig it up before it gets away! I also take your point about Marie Nabonand. Clearly I will have to get it, I'm just not sure it's dark enough for the position I'm wanting to fill. I can try some and see what they colour they are when they flower. Billie do you know of anywhere in WA that would sell any of these? Particularly: Marie Nabonand, Etoile de Hollande, Camnethan Cherry Red, General Gallieni, S. de Docteur Jamain. I can't find any of them on M's or SRG's lists. (not sure if I can name business' on this site)

Parrots are a scourge! I have trouble with '28' parrots. One year I had Buff Beauty shaping up to be absolutely gorgeous with lots and lots of buds. The next day they were ALL on the ground. Why??????

I highly recommend 'Excelsa' and on a long fenceline as yours, it may be ideal. And if it suckers there, so what? Perhaps you might give some thought to the timing of blooming. Many ramblers come into blooming for me in December, weeks after the main flush of other roses.

You can certainly name nurseries on HelpMefind. I would guess and say that those roses are unobtainable on Melville's Rose n Garden, or on Swiss Rose Garden catalogues. I know they would sell umpteen 'Marie Nabonnand' if only they would stock them. Both Billy and I could help with cuttings of "Camnethan Cherry Red" and 'General Gallieni', but I have been unable to strike 'Marie Nabonnand'.

I seem to have most success with cuttings started around the break of season. So could you send me some of "Camnethan Cherry Red", 'General Gallieni', 'Wisteria Stump Seedling', 'Alberic Barbier' and I would like to try 'Marie Nabonand' but perhaps I should try it grafted. I would also like a grafted 'Cl. Etoile de Hollande' but it seems I may have to get that from somewhere in the east. Ross Roses perhaps? Maureen Ross has been very helpful in advising me on colours for my fence perhaps they could also supply me with 'Marie Nabonand'.

I've tried to add the link to the HRIAI website, but it isn't getting through. This is a variant of Mike Shoup's technique. In theory it works for any plant without fuzzy leaves. It needs at least 6 weeks of warm weather; so in South Australia I can start cuttings from mid-November till mid March.Use ziplock food storage bags ("doggybags") about 35 x 25cm, and cut off the bottom corners for drainage. Add about 10cm of your favourite potting mix, and mix in a handful or two of an aerator - Perlite is OK but non-clumping kittylitter is much cheaper (that's what people buy to put in plastic trays for cat toilets). Fill with water to the top of the soil then close the bag and leave it to drain for a couple of hours. Cuttings should have had a flower. For climbing roses, use a climbing branch. Thicker stems, up to pencil size, have more stored carbohydrate and should do better, but old-rose-rescuers often have to use much smaller ones. Cut off the top bud. Remove the leaves from the lower 2 nodes; these will go into the potting mix. Leave some leaves on the upper nodes (ideally 2 or more, depending on the height of the doggybag). Cuttings without leaves are much more likely to fail.Re-cut the bottom of the stem obliquely below a bud, and scrape a bit of the bark off down the side away from the bud (about 2cm long). I dip the cutting into rooting hormone, some people use honey, some don't use anything. Make a hole in the potting mix to near the bottom of the bag, and put the cutting into it. Each bag will take 3 or 4 cuttings. Ideally they should all be from the same cultivar. If you put different cuttings in, write the name or an understandable abbreviation on each stem, with an Artline Garden Marker, otherwise they will get mixed up when you take them out of the bag. (Believe me on this!) Seal the bag and write the date and the name of the cultivar on it.Put 3 or 5 bags in a cheap plastic tray so they can support each other, and won't stain what you put them on. Put the tray where it will get light but not direct sunlight. You can open bags to remove fallen leaves, flower buds, and dead cuttings, but make sure you re-seal them. You can blow into the bag to plump it up. If there aren't many moisture droplets inside the bag, you can add a teaspoon of water, but this is usually not necessary. It's important that the drainage holes aren't blocked, and that the developing roots aren't disturbed. After some time (4 weeks for ramblers, 6 for Teas, Chinas and polyanthas; HTs may take much longer), look at the bottom of the bag for developing roots. When good root systems have developed, open the bag and leave it for a few days or a week for the cuttings to acclimatise. They may need some water. (If you are going on holiday, you can leave the roots to grow for several more weeks before opening the bag.) Then scoop out the rooted cutting with a handful of potting soil. Pot up (I use 12cm pots) and water in with dilute Seasol or other root stimulant. Tiny new leaves will wilt straight away so you might as well remove them. I expect to lose at least 1 in 12 plants after potting up. Protect from wind for some weeks, as the young plant will be top-heavy. Introduce gradually to sunlight. In SA in summer the plant will need daily watering; and I water weekly with dilute Seasol, alternating with a dilute trace-element provider. It doesn't work well with Old European roses, but I don't like having suckerers on their own roots anyway.

Thank You for this, Margaret!It's a variant of using pet-bottles, like I do, but the 6 weeks of warm weather never is guaranteed over here in summer!People might use a greenhouse to obtain that goal.Question: Do You use 1 liter or 3 liter zip-lock bags?Best regards and a good take-off to Christmas, Jay-Jay.

That's fascinating Margaret thank you. Do certain types root better than others? Christopher Lloyd writes about taking cuttings 4cm long with just one node and laying them horizontally on the compost in a propagator with bottom heat. Has anyone any experience of this?Jay-Jay I hope you enjoyed Sinterklaas Day last week.

I find yellow HTs harder to strike ... which was mentioned in early Rose Annuals! Chromatella is still too hard. Ramblers are the easiest, which fits with their ability to layer themselves.Some people doing large numbers of cuttings put them into pure kittylitter, in a broccoli (polystyrene) box - about 40 at a time.One HRIAI member puts cuttings into gravel, with water circulating through from his fishtanks, and gets very good results very quickly. He said you have to choose the gravel to get the pH right, so it doesn't kill the fish.I haven't tried using bottom heat.I prefer the doggybag technique to in-ground cuttings in autumn, because there's time to try again if some fail, you can try to rescue found roses most of the year, plants can be planted out the next autumn, and there isn't the labour of digging them out of the ground eventually. Veilchenblau can become very tenacious between autumn one year and winter the next year.The ziplock bags are labelled with dimensions, not volume. I guess they're nearer 1L than 3. Their vertical dimension limits the length of cuttings you can use.

I think your multi-lingualism is impressive, and brave. I wouldn't attempt a philosophical discussion in the French I learnt at school. In Esperanto I would, because that's a language where everyone starts equal. I meant that Veilchenblau wouldn't let go (of the ground) - it was too hard for me to dig it up. I tried filling a ziplock bag with water. It took more than 5L, but I don't think they are designed to hold liquids. If you are going to try that technique for cuttings, I suggest you choose the bag by its measurements.

We keep learning, and it is chastening to be reminded how little we yet know... ...With roses, grafting is still (except for miniatures) the principle commercial practice. The entire organization of a rose nursery, its machinery, equipment and labour force, are geared to rose production by bud-grafting and it would be such an upheaval to change over to the very different technique of raising them from cuttings 9or from tissue cultures) that this is unlikely to happen in the near future. But it could depend, all the same, and especially now that it is understood that roses themselves can be propagated by the very economical method of intermodal, or single-node, cuttings. The traditional method for preparing a stem cutting is by making the bottom cut just below the node, the top cut (unless the tip of the shoot is left intact) above a node. Thus, at least two nodes are included in every cutting and this is potentially extravagant in plant material. It is the principle reason why cuttings have never been made much used as a commercial method for propagating roses, seeing that only one node is needed for budding. I first learned about the single-node way of taking rose cuttings at a conference of the International plant Propagators' Society which I attended some years ago now (1970) at Nottingham University's School of Agriculture, where Dr Elizabeth Marston had been carrying out experiments. To make a single-node rose cutting, all you to do is to cut with secateurs (those having a scissor action, not the anvil type) half an inch above a node and two inches or less, if necessary, below it. A surprising point arising here is the fact that exposing soft intermodal pith at the cutting's base does induce rotting. You insert your cutting in a suitable rooting medium -- say half peat and half grit -- and wait for results. If, as in the Nottingham University experiment, the cutting go under mist and are given bottom heat at 65 degrees F, they root quickly. But one conference member told me that he had succeeded by inserting them straight into open ground under Add to dictionary tunnels (such as are extensively used nowadays for forcing strawberries). Twice-daily hand-watering from a can was the only attention required. In the actual experiment, whose results I witnessed two years later, an entire plant of the H T rose 'Prima Ballerina' was chopped up and used for cutting material, some wood being ripe, some half-ripe and some soft. This was done on 8 August and the plant made some 130 cuttings. Two years later there were sixty nine plants, nearly all of them sturdy bushes, in the experimental plot. On getting home I forthwith tried the method out for myself. I made one seedbox-full of thirty cuttings of 'Peace'; another divided between three floribunda cultivars: twelve of 'Allotoria', thirteen of 'Europeana' and seventeen of 'Red Wonder'. They went into my cold frame with its double walls and double glazing. By the end of August some of the floribundas were showing roots through the bottom of the box. A point I noticed was that, although each cutting had only one leaf, it was very large and horizontally space-consuming. Where one leaf overlapped another, the lower one yellowed and decayed prematurely. I should have shortened each leaf by at least its terminal leaflet, if not also the pair behind that. I did not disturb the cutting that autumn, the season being well advanced. They over wintered in a ventitated cold frame and many of them retained their foliage throughout. When I dealt with them, potting them off individually at the end of March, twenty-six 'Peace' had rooted, six 'Allotria', ten 'Europeana' and nine 'Red Wonder'. Not a startling result but sufficiently encouraging. If you took your cuttings a month earlier than I did and had them well rooted by early August, they could be potted individually then, instead of waiting till the next spring. Internodal rose cuttings have many possibilities and implications. As private gardeners growing roses for fun, we can now ask our friends fro cutting material without plunging deep into their bushes in search of heels. Commercially this economic method of getting roses on their own roots could be a boom to the container trade at garden centres. Grafted H T and floribunda roses are stunted and uncharacteristic when their roots are confined in even quite large containers. Yet the container trade has a a tremendous outlet for the sale of roses in their flowering season, when the impulse buyer can not only see what he wants but carry it off with him on the spot. Own-rooted plants might turn out to be the answer. Little is known about the performance of different varieties when grown this way, but then singularly little is known about the performance of different varieties when grafted on different rootstocks. These rootstocks are nearly all seedlings, and every one of then genetically different from the next and thus establishes a different relationship with the scion grafted on to it. On its own roots, the internodal imponderables of the rootstock will be eliminated. And so will its suckers. Suckers lead me to the other relevant subject of Dr marston's experiments, which was rose propagation from root cuttings. The necessary ingredient for success in propagation by this method is that a detached piece of root shall be capable, when given its independence , of making a shoot bud. Shoots are not normally produced by stems, not by roots, so the latter capacity is no to be taken for granted. Roses have it, as we always knew, for how else should their rootstocks sucker, as they all too frequently do? I recently had a striking example of suckering buy rose roots in my own garden. I had planted the ultra-vigorous 'Paul's Himalayan Musk' rambler to go through a Judas tree. I had struck this rose from a cutting off one in Maurice Mason's garden, so I knew it was on its own roots. The Judas tree got blown to bits in a gale and had to go, and so did the rose, since it had lost its support. After its removal the whole area up to a distance of 16ft from where the rose had been extracted became riddled with suckers from the broken roots we had left behind. Yet until then the plant had shown no inclination or tendency to sucker at all. Dr Marston showed that even the more specialised and man-made H T rose can be propagated from root cuttings if the stock plant is growing on its own roots (quite big 'if'; the stock plant is only likely to be growing on its own roots if it was one you propagated from a cutting yourself). In her experiment, 2-in. long root cuttings were taken in January and laid horizontally in a peat and grit mixture. They were all thicknesses, but the thinnest produced no shoots while the thickest produced shoots prematurely, before new roots had developed to support them, and these shoots withered. (in such a case it would be wise to anticipate trouble and make stem cuttings of these shoots while they were in good condition.) Rather surprisingly (to me) it was found that horizontally orientated cuttings gave better results than cuttings inserted vertically, and of course, they tax the intelligence less because there's no need to remember which is top and which is bottom. No growth substances were used, but the cuttings were gently shaken in a polythene bag with 15 per cent Captan dust, as a protection against fungal infection. Some cuttings were placed in a warm greenhouse with bottom heat, and these developed quickly. Others in a cool greenhouse from which frost was only just excluded took some months to regenerate, but the final take was as good. Cuttings taken in December and January gave better results than later batches in April. Not one but a number of shoots are likely to develop from a root so your young shrub might have the appearance of suckering instead of growing on the normal leg. I cannot see that this should matter. Varieties used successfully include 'Fragrant Cloud' and the repulsive but ebullient 'Prima Ballerina'. The young plants were potted off into 3 1/2-in. pots and developed very quickly, but the first flowers born that summer were thinor even single and not characteristic. To build up a strong plant it would be wise to not to allow flowering at this early age, but to disbud, as you would a stem cutting. One disadvantage in root cuttings is that you are virtually obliged to sacrifice the parent plant. You can't deprive it of all its roots and then expect to keep it as a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Probably the method has no general application, but it is none the less intriguing and open to us to try who already grow roses on their own roots.

What place, I often ask myself, should roses take in our gardens? A silly question, really, because each of us has to make up his mind about it for himself and each will reach a different conclusion, right for him, wrong for his neighbour. Let me be a little more aggressive. It is not a fact that roses are much over planted and feature too prominently in the majority of gardens? Even in June-July, when at the height of their glory, I think as I look at the endless succession of front gardens that line our roadsides what a horrible jarring jumble of strong colours they comprise. True, they don't have to be a jarring jungle when selected and arranged by someone with an eye for what goes with what. But still, when the flowers have gone, you're left with singularly unlovely shrubs occupying the most prominent positions. A garden can be, by careful mixed planting, be made to absorb a certain number of non-cooperating shrubs such as these, but not too many. It is a question of getting your proportions right. If we can train ourselves to make our roses take their place among other kinds of shrubs and with herbaceous plants, with lilies and alliums and certain other bulbs, and a few clematis, then we shall enjoy their contribution far more but we shall not be able to grow so many of them. There must surely be some roses that you're growing now but could do very well without. Better, in fact. What about those muscular modern hybrid tea rose bushes, for instance, with their great thick stems, huge thorns and course foliage. You must have their blooms for cutting; did I hear you say? But really, you know, they don't look much less stiff or more enduring when you've arranged them in the house. A bunch of stocks or pinks would look far more relaxed and be a great deal freer with their scent. The floribundas, then? You haven't the time for annual bedding and they take its place. What a pity. Because actually the notion that roses are labour-saving is a complete fallacy. I don't hold it against any plant that it makes work if it is worth it in other ways, but to pretend that it doesn't make work is another matter. I won't run through different kinds of attention that roses demand, here, but having seen to their needs, beds of floribundas are very inflexible. There they are, making the same display year after year with only their blossoms to recommend them. Now, bedding out ( as I have indicated in another chapter) gives you endless scope for change and experiment at least twice a year; three times if you're enterprising. If a permeant planting is de rigueur, you could include shapely and harmonious ingredients like junipers and cistuses, santolinas and yuccas (for contrast), that give pleasure for most of the time and among which a few roses would contribute with their own special ebullience in their season without hogging it all the time. Some gardeners, while reviling the H T and floribunda rose, go all out for the old shrub roses and themselves get bogged down. I grant their appeal; flower colour, shape and scent all work together. Colours may be bright, but there is never the crude admixture of yellow and geranium red in them that we find (a) since Pernet-Ducher introduced the blood of the bright yellow Austrian briar, Rose foetida, into the old roses, and (b) since the post-war mutation which introduced pure red geranium pigment into our roses and all the hot colours that have ensued. But the old shrub roses are exacting plants. They demand a deal of careful management. I remember being shown a garden devoted to this type of rose which its owner, clearly dissatisfied, as well she might have been, exclaimed that she was never again going to allow other plants among and under her roses (there were a few spindly nigellas, with an under-the-axe look about them). One has to do things for the roses, she remarked, implying that any competition was a threat to their well-being. And yet there were acres (they felt like acres, anyway) of unappetising ground among the shrubs, many of which were looking wretched, as though longing for a package holiday on the Costa Brava. If only, I thought for the umpteenth time, if only roses can be absorbed into our gardening, then the dog can wag its tail once more and a proper balance is restored. John Treasure manages then beautifully in his garden at Burford House (in the Teme Valley on the Shropshire/Worcestershire border). In the first place he knows how to prune and train them, and most need a good deal of this every year. He keeps those that inclined to make long, leggy shoots down to 3 1/2 ft at flowering time so that they are fully furnished with leaves and blossoms right to the ground. A triangle of stout chestnut spiles forms a 3 1/2-ft tall framework round a bush like the gallicas 'Duc de Guiche' and 'Hippolyte' of the bright pink damask 'Ispahan'. To this the roses' new canes are trained in a spiral, being tied in individually to a post only as often as is necessary to keep them in position. The posts and string, I may add, are of muted natural colouring, so that you only see them if you are looking for the mechanics of the job. Pftizer's junipers, of oblique rather than prostrate habit, are used a good deal among or in front of the roses, and I especially noticed and liked (when on a June visit) the way his 'Duc de Guiche', which has flat, double carmine flowers with an open greenish centre, had one of its canes straying 'naturally' forwards into a juniper, whereas the rest were secured behind and at a higher level to their chestnut supports. These mixed borders with their accent on old roses were very wide, which gives elbow room for large specimens and allows considerable planting choice. At the back a 10-ft Rosa rubrifolia has a splendidly vigorous R, turkestanica (chinensis mutabilis) to one side. It is 6 ft tall and not a bit leggy, and anyway you wouldn't have seen its legs because a group in front of the 3-ft herbaceous perennial Baptisia australis, with indigo blue, lupin-like spikes of clean colouring and outline. 'Duc de Guiche' was by the side of this and then, in front the juniper with a summer-flowering clematis threading through it. You can cut this type hard back almost to ground level annually, without an embarrassment to its supporting neighbours. In front of Rosa damascene 'Rose de Resht' -- bright carmine, very double and flat -- and the deep crimson 'Souvenir d'Alphonse Lavallee', which is of semi-sprawling habit but in need of no support, there were plantings to give later interest of Iris pallida 'Argenteo-variegata', an Agapanthus campanulatus cv., and a pleasing perennial labiate that I once grew from Thompson & Morgan seed, Scutellaria canescens. It has 3-ft spikes of soft greyish-blue flowers. Cistuses are not unlike roses and I liked the juxtaposition of Cistus x purpureus, which is rosy magenta, 3 1/2 ft high, with Rosa centifolia 'De Meux', whose tiny, absolutely formal, flat double flower are only 2 in. across. They are whorled in the centre, thanks to their superabundance of petals. This is a weakfish grower, only 3 ft high. With behind it, in delightful contrast, Buddleia alternifolia 'Argentia'. so much prettier and a little less vigorous than the type-plant with plain green leaves. Silver shoots and wands of lavender blossom, at its best in June. Another good grouping combined the white flowers (pink in bud) of Cistus x corbariensis against a white York rose, Rosa alba, which has glaucous foliage; a stooled plant of Eucalyptus gunnii. bearing its rounded glaucous, juvenile foliage only, a huge mound behind of the purple-leaved form of Cotinus coggygria, the Venetian sumach, and an enviably large specimen of the glaucous Berberis temolaica to one side. Only a foreground apron of heathers seemed a bit of a wasted opportunity. With all their free-and-easy appearance, these roses at Burford House are carefully pruned and trained annually and repeatedly sprayed against fungal diseases in the growing season. The old roses need this attention just as much as modern varieties do. Another garden where the owners, the Allan Camerons, love roses but let them take their place with other garden flowers is at Allangrange on the Black Isle near Inverness. The mauve panicles of Campanula latifolia look well with every kind of large-growing rose, in this case in front of the soft pink Rosa alba 'Celestial'. White rugosas made a pleasing background to this same campanula, to blue delphiniums and the uncompromising scarlet Lychnis chalcedonica. It is always worth finding the right place for this. White (and grey) delphiniums look good with white roses, there being such a contrast in form. Here it was the vigorous double shrub rose 'Mme Hardy' behind the modern single-flowered 'White Wings' in front. I'm very fond of 'White Wings', and its purple stamens make a special feature of the flower centre, but alas that it should make such a miserable stalky plant. The single white Rosa x paulii is so overwhelmingly vigorous that it needs a great deal of space. Allangrange it billows in front of Hydrangea petiolaris, growing up an old tree, and there were white foxgloves all around. Sissinghurst Castle gardens are especially famed for their roses, but so well are they absorbed into and digested by their surroundings that when someone recently referred to their rose garden, I said, 'Where's that?' It hadn't occurred to me that the roses were thicker on the ground in one place than in another, and there is so much else of interest growing around and near them that you never get that terrible feeling, familiar to old-rose nuts, that after the middle of July the year is over. There's no part of my garden where roses are excluded either. We do also have a rose garden. It was designed and planted before the First World War and it is hard to think of it in any other role. But roses are a varied lot and of every age up to sixty years. And I allow other plants to interlope: violets, hyacinths, teazels, and the purple-leaved, yellow-flowered Oxalis corniculata 'Purpurea'. The tall, stemmy, purple-flowered Verbina bonariensis has introduced itself and is a happy ingredient, and around the margins where weedkillers don't reach there is a pink-and-white balsam that would take the whole place over given half a chance. Tom Wright, in his book on the gardens of Kent, Sussex and Surrey (in Batsford's Gradens of Britain series), kindly describes this as 'probably the most successful rose garden of those mentioned in this book'. Any dedicated rosarian would strenuously disagree, and I cannot win prizes from it even in our local flower show. But, within a firm, well-designed framework, it is a happy community. It is true, as I said at the start, that if you treat the rose as just one among many desirable garden flowers, and if you allow it to take its place with the rest, you won't have room to grow as many as if you made of them a speciality. That should be no loss, considering the range of plants that beckons to us and insists that they have comparable charms on our favours. And it is certain that our practices in the art of gardening will be greatly enriched when the rose is considered as a companion for other plants rather than as an isolate.

and it was also written at a time (thirty years ago) when a lot of people still grew roses in the rather horrid mono-culture of the rose garden. Thankfully that's largely died out now and roses are most often grown in mixed borders and more imaginative ways, it's better for their health as much as anything. There is another good piece by Lloyd about ripping out his old roses to plant a tropical garden, I'll post that as soon as I find the book, between my partner and my cleaner they move and hide EVERYTHING. I have time on my hands at present, in Devon, the weather is rubbish and I can't play outside.

Apologies for the delay in replying Isobel.It's worth giving Melville's Rose n Garden a call to see if they have 'General Gallieni' or any of the others. They would probably be more familiar with the name "Beales' Monsieur Tillier" than 'Marie Nabonnand', so mention both names.The Perth Region of HRIA will be having both 'Marie Nabonnand' and 'Clg General MacArthur' budded this season, so let me know if you'd like one done for you."Camnethan Cherry Red" strikes fairly easily from cuttings, but if you prefer budded plants, a number of people in Perth have plants and can supply budwood to a Perth region nursery. Ditto 'General Gallieni' and 'Cramoisi Superieur'. Should be able to find some 'Etoile de Hollande' budwood.I don't know anyone who grows 'Souvenir du Docteur Jamain' here - it doesn't thrive in Perth heat.

The rose garden at Dixter is a gem of a construction by Lutyens, made around 1912 against an old cow house or hovel, with a round, brick cattle-drinking tank as its focal point. Lutyens framed its other three sides with scalloped yew hedges. There are four beds set against these (but divided from their roots by vertical sheets of strong galvanised iron); the other six are island beds (divided by flagstone paving) two of them square, the others long but angled to points at one end. It is a restful and satisfying design. Intending from the outset to make a rose garden, my parents planted two pendent beds with a mixture of vigorous hybrid perpetual and Bourbon roses, such as 'Candeur Lyonaise' (which they bought with them from their first London garden: it dates from around 1905 and still has immense vigour), 'Madame Isaac Pereire' and 'Gruss an Teplitz' (a German admiral famous in the early years of the century). The other beds, again treated in pairs, were each planted with two varieties of Hybrid Tea rose. 'La Tosca' and 'Prince de Bulgaria' is one coupling I remember. It was entirely replaced by 'Madame Butterfly' in the early thirties at which time the square beds were given over to 'Shot Silk' and 'Betty Uprichard'. From the time the garden gradually came under my direction, mixtures of varieties became increasingly indiscriminate. I loved propagating roses from cuttings and I loved to have them on their own roots, so I would either buy one plant and thereafter take cuttings from that, or else beg cuttings from the roses I admired that friends were growing. It was only gradually that we came to appreciate the significance of replant disease and of how materially it affects rose. Getting rid of an old bush replacing it with plants of my own raising was only partially successful. The majority of new ones did not survive. Other made excellent bushes, following a slow start. Seeing that my planting methods are piecemeal and that old bushes of fifty years' standing may grow side by side with young plants newly raised from cuttings, it does not at all suit me to change the soil in between replacing bushes. On the scale of a rose society's garden, this task can be mechanised, replacing the contents and soil of entire beds all in one operation. It is still an expensive exercise, but for the sake of the rose it is still gladly undertaken. Not so in my garden. The rose garden is far from any other soil supply, its entrances are narrow; there is little space for manoeuvring machinery and the wholesale treatment -- out with the old, in with the new -- doesn't appeal to me anyway. Seeing that the soil is excellent for any other plant except for the rose, which has fouled its own patch, I do not see why I should be made a slave to this one flower, which occupies no greater place in my affection than any other. But what would suit a formally designed garden of this kind, other than roses? Some that would not be outrageously extravagant in terms of labour and outlay? Few things are impossible, but to get me going, I needed the physical and emotional backup of a similarly minded confederate. Fergus Garrett, a friend during and since his college days, is now my head gardener. We're going places and it is exciting. The site is very sheltered and very hot in summer. Last year, we tried plugging gaps left by defunct roses with cannas -- an elegant, easy and prolific one, Canna indica 'Purpurea'. It has narrow, purplish leaves, an upright habit to six or seven feet and small red flowers in considerable abundance. It revelled in the rose garden and was particular striking with a margin between it and the paths of self-sown Verbena bonariensis. What we shall therefore now aim for is a summer garden of voluptuous luxuriance. The garden is cut off from other areas, so you will suddenly and unexpectedly be plunged into it. As you fight your way through an over hanging jungle on either side, you progress may sometimes be entirely blocked. But there are plenty of paths and alternative routes, so you can try again along one of these. There'll be no planting plan and I have as yet only unformulated ideas of what will be included, aside from cannas, the verbena, castor-oil plants (Ricinus), perhaps dahlias, Melianthus major (of course). There are a whole lot of seeds I ordered with this project in mind but quite what they were I forget. That can wait till we have the plants ready to put out. We'll need a lot of them, but then we have a lot of seed. Lush-looking hardy plants can be included. John Treasure has given me a sucker off his colony of Rhus glabra 'Laciniata'. Cut to the ground annually, this shrub produces large, pinnate, elegantly dissected leaves. Beth Chatto has promised me seedling from her Paulownia (but I've bought some seed in case she forgets). In contrast to anything pinnate, that has enormous, hairy heart-shaped leaves. Foliage is bound to be on the dominating theme, because it is so much more imposing than flowers and remains in good order for several months. But I can add in an annual like the spider flower Cleome 'Helen Campbell', whose palmate leaves are as handsome as its long-flowering, terminal heads of white blossom. Yesterday we had a grand exhumation of the old rose bushes -- I contemplate calling this 'The Old Rose Garden'. The rending noise of huge old roots reminded me of a hyena devouring a plank of wood. Friends of up to fifty years standing, they had given me great pleasure in their time but now we're moving on. I have, for the first time being at least, left room for a chink of sentimentality. A few old rose bushes remain, including 'Candeur Lyonnaise' and 'Madame Issac'. Also 'Madge', a blush white, deliciously scented polyanthus rose, which no one seems to be offering any longer. Also, and for much the same reason, 'Florence May Morse', a commendably long-flowering, straightforwardly red floribunda rose. And we've left Rosa foliolosa, which many rose, addicts find hard to recognise as a rose at all, with its lax habit very narrow leaflets. Small, single magenta flowers is its floral contribution. Come and see how we're progressing in five months' time.

Of course.We arranged to have plants of 'Marie Nabonnand' and 'Clg General MacArthur' budded and there should be extra plants in spring if you would like budded ones.Let me know which cuttings you need and PM me your address.(Or if you happen to be in Perth on Sunday 20th May, Perth region of HRIA are having a cutting exchange day at our place.)

Thanks Billy, I'd love one of each if there is enough to go round. I'd love to come to your cutting day but we're coming up the day before and two days in a row to Perth would be really over the top! We have to come home again in the afternoon to feed the hordes, so sorry. Thanks for the invitation though.

One of the BEST roses of all time period. This beauty is easy for beginners and rewarding for the experts. Gorgeous show quality blossoms, tidy stately bush, disease free, continual bloomer, and fragrant. This is the hybrid tea for growers who don't bother with the fussy HTs. Every rose garden should have one!